Backspin
by infiniteviking
Summary: He had been strong before. Now he was a menace. Peri and the Sixth Doctor, edging toward an understanding despite the usual interpolation of mortal peril.


**Backspin**

In darkness we do what we can;  
In daylight, we're oblivion....  
_--Dougie Maclean_

"Do _not move_."

Crushed against the Doctor's garish greatcoat, Peri let the stale station air filter in through her nose and wished she were somewhere very far away. It was strange, how quiet he could be if he wanted to. The man he'd become on Jaconda existed to make his presence known to creation, and yet _he_ didn't trust _her_ not to scream and alert the aliens.

It wasn't as if they looked dangerous or anything. The creatures streaming in through the side hatch thirty feet below were vast and translucent, resembling nothing so much as giant jellyfish creeping along on numerous knobby arms, squelching as they oozed over the sill. They might even have been graceful, in a weird way, if not for the station's natural gravity. As it was, their struggles seemed a bit pathetic.

"They have excellent hearing," the Doctor breathed in her ear, "and they've cut off the way to the TARDIS. We'll just have to wait till they've finished."

She strained against his hand. His previous incarnation, the gentle, reassuring one with his hidden core of iron, had understood when to take charge and when to let go; Peri had trusted him to know, had secretly admired his quiet confidence. Then he had died for her, and everything had changed.

For a moment, he ignored her discomfort; then finally, reluctantly, eased his hold -- just a little, still insultingly ready to clamp down again if she did something stupid. Leaning her head back, she caught his reproving look and returned one of weary irritation, trying to be grateful that he was letting her speak at all.

"How long will that take?"

"That, my dear," he murmured, "is a question for the ages."

"And I thought you knew everything."

"_Practically_ everything."

The smug tone was more than she could bear. Letting her body go limp, she slid out of his grasp and huddled down on the floor. It was cold, gritty and damp where condensation had moistened the frozen dust of several centuries, but anything was better than his endless condescension.

Frowning, he folded his arms and remained stubbornly on his feet, craning his neck to see out into the lighted bay. Peri hugged her knees, sat back on her heels and wished she'd worn longer trousers, or at least brought a coat.

From here, the aliens were invisible. They were still down there, though, queuing noisily up for their unknown ritual. _With our luck_, Peri thought, _it'll be a hunting expedition, with us as the bait...._

Leaning forward, she risked a look down into the bay.

The jellyfish had draped themselves over all available surfaces. There must have been at least thirty of them, and now she could see that part of their translucence was caused by layers of plastic: environment suits, surrounding the creatures inside with a soothing cushion of liquid. Underneath, their membranes were shot with pale, smoky white, fluttering smoothly in the brine.

Peri couldn't see any eyes, but they all seemed to be focusing on a group in the center, where several of them were clustered around a smaller one--

--no, not smaller. Limp, unmoving and rustling in a cocoon devoid of water... a shrunken, frightening thing.

"What are they doing to it?" she whispered, forgetting her fear in a sudden pang of compassion.

"Nothing it will ever know about." With a grimace, the Doctor acknowledged that whispering from a height was silly and crouched down to her level. His broad face, when she looked, was uncommonly serious, his expression far away.

"It's... no, _she_ is dead, Peri. A great matriarch, from the sound of it. They've all come here to lay her to her final rest in a sacred rite that no outsider is ever permitted to see. If they knew we were here...." He trailed off wryly, twisting one hand in a demonstrative strangling motion near his throat.

She flinched.

Something flickered in his face. Surprise, confusion, denial, regret... it was impossible to tell, but he looked away a trifle too quickly, refocusing on the tragic jellyfish and their sad, sad funeral.

The pallbearers were carefully opening the bag and arranging the limbs of their honored dead. A gust of decay filtered up to their niche, and Peri jammed her sleeve over her face. There was a whistling in her ears. It was almost like... yes, that was it. The creatures were communicating, their high-pitched voices probably filtering through one anothers' cocoons into something understandable. She was tentatively pleased with herself for having figured that out.

The Doctor shifted suddenly beside her.

Hoping nastily that the fumes were annoying him too, she glanced over with watering eyes and her irritation immediately drained away. He was leaning forward, probably the better to hear the whistling, expression grim and everything about him taut and vibrating like a plucked string. _What_? she wanted to ask, but he had a hand up to check her. The jellyfish were circling tighter, waving their tentacles.

"No," he muttered. "Surely not. There's a perfectly good airlock back where they came from, if they were going to... of all the careless, irresponsible--"

He sprang to his feet and attacked the wall at the end of their alcove.

"Shh!" Alarmed, she followed him. "You said the--"

"No, no, no, no... _yes_!" With a grunt of triumph, he forced a set of doors open and rummaged inside the small space beyond. "Forget about the sound, they're past all that now, they wouldn't hear a Denebian dervish if one transmatted into their midst--" A savage pull, and a set of spacemens' togs tumbled out, complete with a ridiculous bowl helmet. He shoved them at Peri and reached in again, barking, "Put that on. Quick as you can. Hurry, woman!"

She did, tangling the legs together in her haste. He turned on her, another suit draped over his arm, and pulled her feet off the floor, yanking the suit up over her torso, forcing the legs to straighten out by themselves.

He had been strong before. Now he was a menace.

Wrenching free, she bit her lip to keep from crying out and pulled the suit the rest of the way on, her fingers shaking on the clips. She could do it herself, or _not_ do it if she chose; why did he even keep her around if he was just going to--

He had given his own suit a quick once-over, then dropped it and reached for the helmet seals at her shoulders. Furious, she batted his hands away. "Get _off_--"

"This is no time for your human pride," he snapped. "Listen! In three minutes, that clan down there is going to leave through the floor hatches. You saw how none of those airlocks were fit to move, much less, oh, I don't know, seal in the air where it belongs? When that happens, if you're not ready, your blood will boil from the inside out."

"Why aren't you putting yours on, then?" she challenged.

His eyes darted away and he shrugged dismissively. "Won't work. Tank's empty. Someone's ripped the hose right out."

"But -- you'll die!"

"That isn't important--" Seeing that this was the worst tack he could have taken at the moment, he backpedaled at once. Unfortunately, that was even more worrying than his usual bluster. "Besides, I won't. I'll put myself in a hypnotic stasis. Get me back to the TARDIS and I'll be fine."

The whistling below -- speaking? singing? -- had risen to a fever pitch. Peri swallowed, fighting down a horrible sensory memory of being unable to breathe, and struggled to keep her voice from cracking.

"And what happens when your _blood boils from the inside out_?"

He stared at her haughtily. "Do you seriously think a Time Lord is that fragile? It isn't my fault your species' pathetic physiology can't handle a bit of vacuum."

There had to be another option. Anything was better than watching him die again. "The -- the clan down there. We can go past them now, you said they were in a trance--"

"Three floors down and several corridors over? We'll never make it in time."

"Then we'll share my tank," she said desperately. "Attach your suit to mine--"

"Won't work, the valve is crushed--"

"Then fix it! Do _something_!"

"All right!" he exploded, jabbing a peremptory finger toward something behind her. "Get me that hose over there."

She turned. Something touched her neck from behind, and everything went black.

**.o0o.**

The Doctor's first breath was gasping agony.

Gravity shifted, and he was sitting up, clutching his chest. His second breath was easier, though his lungs still felt splintered -- _and well they might_, griped an inner voice that he only distantly recognized as his own. He'd probably have a hacking cough for days. Really, he was lucky the frozen tissue hadn't shredded itself in gulping down the air--

..Yes. They were back in the ship. The stasis had done its job, and he was alive.

They'd made it.

Peri had made it.

Oh. That was probably her shouting, then.

The room blurred out, and he reached out with one hand, letting her steady him as some of his joints decided not to cooperate. Just for a minute, of course. Just until the spinning stopped and he was able to feel the floor.

"Now can you hear me?"

"I...." he wheezed, choking down a whimper as his stiffened vocal cords tried to cut his throat from the inside. "I don't see... how I could avoid it...!"

That was another mistake. She punched him in the shoulder, and then had to hang onto his coat to stop him from falling over again.

"Leaving me outside might have been kinder," he growled.

"Next time I just might!"

He glanced up sharply, trying his best to appear inscrutable and unmoved, and very carefully didn't think about how the pain in his chest eased off as her expression confirmed that she didn't mean it.

His clothes were damp. Condensation, he realized, drawn from the air when Peri had hauled his frozen body through the doors. For a moment, as she helped him sit upright again, their hands brushed and he felt or heard the frantic pounding of her heart. He shivered and took a breath to quiet his mind, closing it to the sting of aching muscles and the cold and fear that churned through her sense memory.

"From now on," she told him, "you're going to have to work a lot harder on not...." A deep breath, the quaver in her voice going unmentioned. "Not dying again."

"Why, Peri," he didn't say. "That almost sounds as though you prefer me the way I am."

Instead, he curled his legs under him and got to his feet, and didn't shake her off as she helped him to stand: even though the spacesuit's sleeves were still cold, and even though, if he really wanted to, he could have done it himself.

_-_-_-_-_-

Written during Livejournal's Tardis-Gen ficathon, for Settiai, who requested an early adventure for the Sixth Doctor and Peri.


End file.
